Rain, Doily and Garter

It has been a super rainy dreary week so far, thankfully its been a bit warmer than it has been but that is probably due to the fact that it is so overcast. The warmer has been much nicer but the dreary has done nothing to improve the depressed, more than sad mood I have been in. I have pretty much just sat on the couch either just in a state of stupor or trying to tat.
I have made it through the next row of my doily without too many issues.  I believe I have only had to un-tat one ring and one chain so that is the good news.  The next row is proving to be a bit of a challenge.  I cant, for love or money remember how I did the little 5 petal flowers that this involves.  I still have the last doily I did, yes I know I still haven't posted a final picture of it yet but I am glad I haven't trimmed the thread ends off yet. I have tried to study the last doily to see if I could figure out how I did them but that is not working so well.  I then turned to my blog to see if I could find any tips.  I am very glad I didn't read back through old posts before I started this doily again because I must have blocked out of my memory how much this doily fought me. Now I am kind of remembering the last one fought me so badly because I wasn't paying close attention to joins so moving forward I will just take this one slow and pay more attention.  I didn't find any tips about the flowers so I am hoping it will just come to me.

Laying this out flat I just found out that the second row is bunching up quite badly. I am trying to figure out why and if I do this pattern again what I can do to avoid it the next time.  I am almost wondering if I tatted row 3 too tight and made the joining picots too short.  Row 4 seems to be ok.  I have actually pulled the chains in this doily fairly tight so  maybe I didn't pull the chains as tightly in row 3.  Its sure times like these I wish there was a tatting group in my area or tatting classes that I could attend that I could learn more tips and tricks.
I have also spent a bit of time on the internet trying to come up with a pattern that will work to do a garter for my sister.  She is getting married in a couple weeks so I was hoping to be able to make her something.  I have been trying to come up with a pattern that I can run a blue ribbon through to give her the "something blue".  I found this bookmark pattern on pinterest that I added picots to but so far I am not loving the way it is turning out.

 I am not sure if the garter will even stay in place with just the tie so this project may be a bit more than I can accomplish in the time allotted but I guess I wont know that till I try. I am at the point right now that I need to make a decision whether to finish this one off or move on to another pattern. Almost all of my shuttles are being used on other projects so I am not sure what to choose.  I like the Aerlit shuttle I am using right now on this one but it doesn't hold much thread so that means lots of hiding ends which is annoying because I am not so good at it. Decision, decisions, decisions!!  AGGHHH!!!